April Fool: 22 Things About Seattle That We Wish Were a Joke

1. Dan Savage is threatening to run for mayor. From Mike the Mover to the Owl Party, unfunny joke-candidates are a tradition in Seattle, and a fairly benign one. But the sex columnist's threat to enter the mayor's race is a whole other level of ridiculous. Righteous as ever, like a KVI hot-talker for the Pike/Pine set, Savage claims his lunge for the spotlight is all for the sake of our political system. "I have a love for democracy," he declared last week. "And it doesn't flourish in places where people aren't challenged by legit candidates at the ballot box." But Savage's presence only insures that any "legit" candidates remaining on the fence will immediately flee, rather than run the risk of ending up on a Muni League debate stage with the biggest attention hog in town. Savage claims he'll bow out if "somebody else jumps in," but last we checked, a couple of legit candidates already had jumped in. Dan has apparently designated himself kingmaker, which is perhaps unsurprising given that he previously took credit for getting Greg Nickels elected in the first place. ("The mayor of Seattle is the mayor of Seattle because of us," he told an interviewer. "He won by 1,500 votes, and we put him on the cover and people voted for him.") Like the fruit-smashing comedian Gallagher, who ran for California governor in 2003, Savage's candidacy will be an embarrassment for all concerned, but at least Gallagher didn't pretend he was upholding any principle other than the revival of his own flagging career.